Writing in The Root, Slate's online magazine covering African-American topics, Bryant Terry makes the argument that soul food has gotten a bad rap. Soul food is portrayed in popular culture as salty, fatty, sugar-laden comfort dishes like mac n' cheese, greens with ham hocks, fried chicken and lard biscuits. But half a century ago soul food meant the simple dishes Southern African-Americans ate for dinner, with plenty of fresh local ingredients - sauteed okra, stone ground grit cakes, homemade peach chutney. Sure there was fried chicken and cobbler, but that was hardly the whole picture, Terry says. Terry, a Bay Area cookbook author originally from Memphis, hopes that bringing back locally focused, veggie-heavy soul food can help lower rates of obesity and diabetes in African-American communities. The article includes recipes for grit cakes and citrus collards with raisins. Yum.
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